A Process of Finding Peace... Still Waiting On Answers...

The morning started out tough... Somewhere between exhaustion from not sleeping and constant, consuming anticipation of the next few hours lead to a very nauseated wait.  I tried to decide how to pray and what to pray for and ended up relying on the scripture that so many of you have shared…

We arrived incredibly early with folder and paperwork in hand.  Turns out we wouldn’t be the only parents with this same setup.  Surprisingly, a pediatric neurosurgeon has the LEAST amount of paperwork to fill out compared to any other doctor I have ever been to, which I’ve got to say was actually a nice relief.  The waiting room was our first challenge… It was frightening, and humbling, and encouraging ALL at the same time.  As a mom and her son, who strikingly reminded us of Gabe, sat across from us I whispered to Matt, “I wish I could read minds in here.”  Not more than a couple minutes later she made reference to our folder and “notes” and joked about her collection of the same thing.  Within seconds she had boldly asked me what was going on with our little one.  I was actually relieved, because I wanted to know the exact same thing about her.  I told her what little we know about Eli and she shared a story that surpasses all odds and brought me to praising the Lord right there before we had even heard a snippet about Eli.  I was a little more settled and a little more confident after talking with her and almost felt ready to meet our doctor.

They called us back and we waited only briefly before meeting a very confident but kind Dr. B.  He climbed up on the examining table and chatted about our history and told us about his daughter who was also studying to be a teacher.  He put us at ease immediately by treating us as people, just like him, who simply chose to do a job that was their “passion.” Not really much of a connection between a teacher and a neurosurgeon BUT he simply explained himself as someone who loves coming to work every day. We continued to become more settled… We discussed the confusing/conflicting reports sent from the referring doctor and then it was time to insert the CD with “the” images on them.  After a moment of figuring out how to scroll through the somewhat confusing program they were packed in, he went to click the next button and looked at me as if to ask what he was doing wrong.  I told him there were no more images, only 3.  He responded confused with “That’s it?”  I apologized and told him that I wished that I had more for him to look at, to which he apologized and said he just didn’t want to leave us unanswered again.  Unfortunately, from the pictures there was very little he could determine and he was NOT in the business of guessing based on poor quality pictures.  A malformation was neither ruled out OR in.  What he did speak only briefly of, was some extra cerebral spinal fluid and some dilation of the one ventricle that he could actually see. These were as he state “indicators” of a cyst, but much more confirmation is necessary.  He needs MANY more good quality images to discuss anything further with us and has set in motion plans for us to have a Fetal MRI very soon.  We should hopefully hear something by the end of this week as to the MRI date and time.  From there we will move forward with our understanding of the, right now, unknown.

I feel one of my prayers has already been answered… For the first time I feel as though Eli is in good hands and under the watchful eye of a wise and resourceful doctor.  We will be cancelling our follow-up ultrasound, so our prayers are now directed towards the MRI and the still lingering Amniocentesis results.  Also, we will continue to diligently pray that over the next 5 weeks, anything that needs healing will do so as Eli stays safe in his protection with me.  Please continue to pray for continued wisdom for Dr. B as well. 

We are tired and exhausted from the mere stress of the day and past week… We appreciate and are indebted to each of you who have stopped to pray for Elijah.  Words will never encompass what that actually means to us, but know that each of you are one of the things in this time that we are grateful for…